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Back then, he faced 40 theft charges and now he's behind bars for the same crime.

WLKY talked with one of the most recent victims, who put up a fight.

It was Jan. 9 and Brian Harper was at his desk working when a co-worker told him a man was dumping garbage out back.

“No one just dumps trash in the middle of the day in a business’s dumpster. So we knew he shouldn’t be back there,” Harper said.

Harper investigated and was shocked at what he found inside the dumpster.

“There were three purses, three different IDs from Kentucky, Indiana and North Carolina,” he said.

Police believe the man dumping those purses was Elkins.

They said earlier that day he snatched Pamela Gill's purse at a Clarksville Kroger gas station.

“Pumped my gas like normal, got my receipt and when I walked around there was a man inside my car going over,” said Gill.

“All the sudden I heard a woman scream no, no, no, just the top of her lungs,” said John Wilson.

Wilson was next door, on his break when he witnessed the whole thing.

“I looked over and the Taurus hit the gas so hard almost hit two or three cars,” Wilson said.

Police say Elkins, who was in a stolen Ford Taurus, got away with Gill's purse, but not without her putting up a fight first.

“He had a hold of my purse and I started beating him on his back,” Gill said. “Tried to reach inside his car to grab the keys to get it turned off because it was still running and he slid into his car, he is beating my arm, I’m hitting him, beeping the horn with my elbow and he drove off.”

“As he was taking off, she was trying to punch the window and looked like she may have taken a kick too. And looked like he almost ran her over too," said Wilson.

Gill said she'd just cashed a large check, and Elkins got away with all that money, including her ID and credit cards.

Just a day earlier, police said he targeted another woman at the same gas station.

Years ago Elkins was arrested for a string of similar crimes.

“He's been out and six years later he is doing it again apparently nothing happened. He wasn’t repo formed as they say,” said Gill.

While the crime happened in January, authorities just filed charges in the case days ago.

Elkins was already behind bars. He was arrested in January on drug-related charges and for stealing a car.